1. Technical Field
This invention generally relates to cloud computing systems, and more specifically relates to hybrid simulation in a cloud computing environment to simulate a large-scale cloud solution on a smaller scale prior to full deployment in the cloud.
2. Background Art
Cloud computing is a common expression for distributed computing over a network and can also be used with reference to network-based services such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). IaaS is a cloud based service that provides physical processing resources to run virtual machines (VMs) as a guest for different customers. The virtual machine may host a user application or a server. A sophisticated user application for a cloud computing environment may be referred to as a large-scale computing solution.
Deployment of a large-scale computing solution to a cloud computing environment it typically a manual and very time-consuming process. Achieving an optimal deployment often requires an iterative process to determine the configuration of the resources needed for the solution, such as how many VMs are needed, the resources needed for each VM, which tasks will run on which VMs, etc. Deployment of the large-scale solution may require significant cloud resources for each of the iterations to optimize the deployment configuration.